VT- Over-reliance on plea bargains

1-3-2009 Vermont:

So now we are to have a new sex offender law creating a new crime, aggravated sexual assault of a minor under 16, with a Jessica's Law-type provision for a mandatory 25-year sentence without parole upon conviction. What's not to like about this?

The first thing to realize is that the existing sexual assault on a minor law, with its arbitrary sentencing guidelines, has not been repealed. Whether a sex offender is prosecuted under the new law or the old seems to be left to the discretion of the state's attorney running the prosecution. With this in mind let's try to estimate how many sex offenders will end up serving the mandatory 25-year sentence. I suspect the number will be zero for the foreseeable future.

Prosecutors are reluctant to bring sex offenders to a jury trial under the existing law. A trial requires a lot of work and expense, and getting testimony from an alleged victim can be traumatic and quite difficult. The conviction rate is fairly low. Since the existing law has fairly stiff penalties, alleged offenders have little incentive to enter guilty pleas.

So why do we have this new law? Clearly its only purpose is to provide prosecutors with a tool to induce alleged offenders to plead guilty under the existing law, with a plea bargain arrangement. This may be OK, but the thousands of Vermonters who signed petitions demanding a Jessica's Law should be aware that this is not what we are getting from our legislators.

The Sixth Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the right to a jury trial. Nowhere in the Constitution is the practice of plea bargaining mentioned. I have heard that the vast majority (over 90 percent) of criminal offences in Vermont are settled by guilty pleas as a result of plea bargains. Maybe it's time to ask whether our heavy reliance on plea bargains is in the best public interest. ..News Source.. Opinion of: LARRY ROGERS, Brandon